Five Brothers and a War

Hitler’s Rise to Power

the nation of class distinctions. He offered to bring order from chaos, and to stamp out corruption, despite the fact that he was instrumental in bringing that chaos. As he gave his firebrand speeches across Germany, the SA paraded in the streets, broke up opposition party rallies and events, and beat up people who might have been seen as obstacles for whatever reason. Most of all, he offered to make Germany great by ignoring the Treaty of Versailles, smashing communism and dealing with the problems created by the Jews. The combined effect was to create a populist movement that the establishment, including Germany’s Head of State, President Paul von Hindenburg, was reluctant to stop. Attempting to stop it would likely have been impossible without extremely skillful leadership. Again though, the Weimar Republic was by design very weak. And by design, Hitler was very strong—a contrast that was very enticing to Germans. That the Communists and the Nazis controlled more than 50% of the Reichstag is also a staggering statement of the weakness of the middle class in Germany at that time. The net effect was that most of the parliament was committed to the destruction of the parliament, though for very different reasons, and from politically opposite poles. The election on September 14, 1930 resulted in those elected taking their seats in the Reichstag on October 13. Every event was staged to gain maximum effect, and this most momentous event was certainly no different. All 107 members wore their brown uniforms, and marched into the chamber in unison. As the roll was called, each member rose, shouted “Present” followed by “ Heil Hitler ” (“Hail, Hitler”). Germany’s head of state in the Weimar Republic was the President. In its young history, there were only two permanent presidents, and two very short-term interim presidents. At the time of the Nazi rise, the president was the very elderly, former Field Marshall, Paul von Hindenburg. He was elected to his first seven-year term in 1925. Therefore, elections were scheduled to elect the president in 1932. Von Hindenburg had opted not to run, but politicians sought to change his mind. Hitler was asked to support von Hindenburg as well, but had no intention of furthering the Weimar Republic, so chose to run for the office himself. In the election, Hitler campaigned furiously and got more than 11 million votes versus 18 million for von Hindenburg, who did almost no campaigning. But von Hindenburg only got 49% of the vote, and was therefore forced into a run-off election with second-place Hitler, who got 30%. The run-off election saw Hitler gain two million votes, and von Hindenburg gain fewer than one million, but the number was sufficient to get von Hindenburg his majority, and he was thus elected to a second term. But Hitler had what he needed, though perhaps not what he wanted. He gained an opportunity to show that the Weimar Republic was a relic, and he was the new, young future of Germany. Von Hindenburg was 85 at the time, whereas Hitler was 43. The German army was limited to no more than 100,000 troops under the terms of the Treaty of Versailles. But Hitler’s SA by now had 400,000. After the 1932 presidential

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Five Brothers and a War

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